Sandy Bridge Debacle: What It Means for You

Hot on the heels of Intel's recall stop-shipment of its series-6 chipset, we spoke to several motherboard and system manufacturers about what's going to happen for them, and their customers.

First, the 6-series chipset is Cougar Point, and not "Sandy Bridge" as referred to by most reports -- strangely, even most motherboard vendors call it "Sandy Bridge." We reckon this is something Intel needs to clarify with motherboard makers in order to make things a little more clear.

According to several major manufacturers that we spoke to, customers are calling asking to return stock. Since mass quantities of boards and systems have already been sold into the channel, systems builders are still waiting for official word from Intel on what to do. Surprisingly, top management at companies like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc., did not even hear about this issue until this morning -- when everyone else found out.

This is definitely a major roadblock for Intel, and it means several things for you as a customer:

- If you've bought a Sandy Bridge system, you may be entitled to a free replacement.

Manufacturers told us that revised motherboards and notebooks based are unlikely to appear until at least April of this year, and Intel probably won't be supplying new chipset revisions until early to mid-March. However, replacements are unclear as manufacturers are informing us that details need to be worked out with Intel on how customers will be handled.

Intel claims that only 5 to 15-percent of owners will experience the flaw over time. But speaking with manufacturers, we were told that numbers appear to be far greater than that. Some companies told us that this is definitely a "panic-mode" situation for them.

Motherboards that you already have today will still work, but you may see performance drop over time on the SATA 2 ports. If you are only utilizing SATA 3 (6gbps), then you will not encounter the issue.

- If you're thinking about a Sandy Bridge system, you will have to wait until at least April.

Clearly, buying a Sandy Bridge system isn't what anyone should be doing at this moment. Newegg has delisted both Cougar Point motherboards and Sandy Bridge CPUs.

This is a widespread problem affecting all products that are based on Cougar Point. Notebooks and up-coming Xeon-based servers may take longer than motherboards to see replacements become widely available.

- Expect delays in new availability.

Some companies told us that there is some shortage of copper and other materials from the manufacturing side. This could further introduce delays beyond an April time frame.

- Sandy Bridge and Cougar Point updates.

Intel is expected to hold several conference calls with major manufacturers today and let them know how the situation will be handled. We'll have more details for you later this afternoon.

Snipergod87This debacle may cause some to switch over to AMD. It seems like Intel is handling the situation well at least.

Why? You think people will hold off for Bulldozer processors, which don't even have a firm release date yet, and are going to have the same sort of "early adapter" risk as the new Intel chips had? Or that they'll decide to invest in last-gen AMD processors? Seems unlikely.

Right now, AMD doesn't have anything to satisfy people that want new tech as quickly as possible. While this could obviously hurt Intel, depending on how they handle this setback and without a real alternative to Sandy Bridge CPUs, it seems people would be just as likely (if not more so) to wait until Intel takes care of the issue as they would be to decide to wait and see if Bulldozer delivers.

Awww man this is kind of disheartening . I was just planning to upgrade my MOBO and throw down some money for DDR3 and a Sandy Bridge chip. Now I'm going to hold out until I start hearing news stories with "All Clear -- Purchase Purchase PURCHASE!"

It's hardware problems like this that can severely cripple a good product and even have people pass over, switch sides, or wait for the next generation CPU "Ivy Bridge" possible later this year.

Now I don't know what I should do, I guess wait it out and keep my eye out on the progress.

Im curious like hell, what kind of error would cause the chip set to eat itself alive, is this planned redundancy gone wrong? i figure this can't be a material degradation issue because, well if intel doesn't know the best material to use for a chip set then there's no hope for sandy bridge. It's even more interesting that this is a cumulative error, how is it possible to have a cumulative error??????

It only bugs 5% of chipsets! Stop freaking out. Buy if your ready. Performance degradation over time. It's not gonna blow up. And it's throuput performance at that. A cheap sata card will circumvent it if your one of the small %. NO BIG DEAL! Hell just buy a 6G/s (Sata 3) hard drive if your that worried.